The Rigged Slot Machine – Overwatch’s Female Character Creating Engine
Every time we criticize female sexualization in Overwatch, we’re sure to get at least a single reply along the lines of “What’s wrong with having ONE sexy assassin/pilot/etc. in the game?”, to which our answer would be “Nothing. But where’s that ONE person you’re talking about? We see a whole bunch. Also why no male character is coded unequivocally sexy with his design and/or clothes and/or posing and/or personality?”
I figured the best way to illustrate this is a rigged slot machine, in which slot devoted to describing character design lands on “sexy” 6 out of 8 times.
All heroes in the game have unique ethnic and cultural backgrounds, backstories and personalities. Most of them look quite diverse. The problem is that for women in Overwatch, more often than not,
the visual design compromises that in one way or another, in favor of making them conventionally attractive for the presumed cishet male gamer.
It might be a single thing, it might be the whole way character looks, dresses and is animated, but most of female Overwatch heroines suffer from gratuitous sexualization and obvious double standard when compared to their male colleagues. And a single step in more varied female representation should not be glorified as massive progress when everything else remains unfixed.
While a few of the game’s problems listed in old articles like this or this one got resolved by expanding the lineup, sadly, year and a half later
a lot of them remain true.
~Ozzie
Breakdown of all the concerns we have with characters under the cut:
Symmetra, the Sexy Indian Architect: (yes, we know the in-universe word is architech, but isn’t really relevant nor is it our job to explain Blizzard’s convoluted lore). Everything about her pantless costume and non-dance related posing is devoted to accentuating her hourglass figure, especially the thighs and hips. Also she’s wearing thigh-high high heels for no reason other than to look sexy to the audience – even Blizzard knows this.
D.Va, the Sexy Korean Mecha Pilot: D.Va is a teenage gamer celebrity. She’s girly, flirty, flamboyant and confident. Being a sexy character suits her personality and backstory. Her biggest sin is that she was revealed very late in the beta, so among all the gratuitously sexualized women, her genuine sexyness doesn’t stand out. Overwatch missed an opportunity when they didn’t make her THE sexy female character in the cast of diverse women with varying degrees of femininity.
Mercy the Sexy Swiss Healer: She’s a doctor devoted to heal the wounded with the help of her high-tech suit… suit that is so skin-tight it involves a boobplate. We can assure there’s nothing high-tech about separate boob bumps in a rigid breastplate meant for protection. Also, angel-themed character just happens to be a pale, blue-eyed blonde? How subtle!
Pharah, the Sexy Egyptian Soldier: Personality-, animation- and story-wise, a professional and devoted soldier in every inch. Design-wise… her (obviously Samus-inspired) battle suit includes what looks like a metal thong.
And funny how a female soldier character in gender-ambiguous armor just happens to have long, luxurious hair and perfectly made up face under that helmet. If she was a man she’d have the battle hardened, probably scarred, grizzled Male Protagonist™ look, including the buzzcut that conveniently cuts down on polygons while conveying military pragmatism.
Widowmaker the Sexy French Assassin: Some say she’s justified in looking sexy, as her design coveys a femme fatale. While it’s not wrong to have a femme fatale in the lineup (as long as it’s played as more than “good is chaste, evil is sexy”), we don’t see how that connects to this particular character, given her personality and story.
Why someone who was kidnapped, brainwashed and turned into a perfect unemotional killer would dress in something that looks like bodypaint with impossibly deep cleavage and high heels? How is such look helpful for her job as a sniper? Why does every male character from this archetype look totally different than her?
Tracer, the Sexy British Speedster: She’s playful, cute, energetic… and for some reason, whenever there’s a chance, her butt is put in the spotlight. Blizzard couldn’t give it up even when they admitted her previous victory pose was objectifying… they replaced it with a more playful, yet still butt-focused literal pinup.
Zarya, the Beefy Russian Gunner: The first attempt for a different female body type in Overwatch. Why does her suit includes boobplate, though? Much like Pharah, she doesn’t seem to have any of the grit we come to expect from heavy duty soldiers when they happen to be men.
Mei, the Curvy Chinese Scientist: Only problem with her is that we don’t know for sure whether she is significantly chubby/curvy (compared to all the thin women around) or if her thick arctic clothes make her look that way. She certainly doesn’t have her body type conveyed to the same extent as, say, Roadhog.
ALL OF THEM: They’re all young (19-34), with conventionally pretty faces (even Zarya and Mei, who are supposed to be somewhat masculine and chubby, respectively, don’t veer off any far from Western beauty standard). There’s very little body type variety. Literally half of the women are ethnically white, while two East Asian characters sport pale completions.
The Rigged Slot Machine – Overwatch’s Female Character Creating Engine
Every time we criticize female sexualization in Overwatch, we’re sure to get at least a single reply along the lines of “What’s wrong with having ONE sexy assassin/pilot/etc. in the game?”, to which our answer would be “Nothing. But where’s that ONE person you’re talking about? We see a whole bunch. Also why no male character is coded unequivocally sexy with his design and/or clothes and/or posing and/or personality?”
I figured the best way to illustrate this is a rigged slot machine, in which slot devoted to describing character design lands on “sexy” 6 out of 8 times.
All heroes in the game have unique ethnic and cultural backgrounds, backstories and personalities. Most of them look quite diverse. The problem is that for women in Overwatch, more often than not,
the visual design compromises that in one way or another, in favor of making them conventionally attractive for the presumed cishet male gamer.
It might be a single thing, it might be the whole way character looks, dresses and is animated, but most of female Overwatch heroines suffer from gratuitous sexualization and obvious double standard when compared to their male colleagues. And a single step in more varied female representation should not be glorified as massive progress when everything else remains unfixed.
While a few of the game’s problems listed in old articles like this or this one got resolved by expanding the lineup, sadly, year and a half later
a lot of them remain true.
~Ozzie
Breakdown of all the concerns we have with characters under the cut:
Symmetra, the Sexy Indian Architect: (yes, we know the in-universe word is architech, but isn’t really relevant nor is it our job to explain Blizzard’s convoluted lore). Everything about her pantless costume and non-dance related posing is devoted to accentuating her hourglass figure, especially the thighs and hips. Also she’s wearing thigh-high high heels for no reason other than to look sexy to the audience – even Blizzard knows this.
D.Va, the Sexy Korean Mecha Pilot: D.Va is a teenage gamer celebrity. She’s girly, flirty, flamboyant and confident. Being a sexy character suits her personality and backstory. Her biggest sin is that she was revealed very late in the beta, so among all the gratuitously sexualized women, her genuine sexyness doesn’t stand out. Overwatch missed an opportunity when they didn’t make her THE sexy female character in the cast of diverse women with varying degrees of femininity.
Mercy the Sexy Swiss Healer: She’s a doctor devoted to heal the wounded with the help of her high-tech suit… suit that is so skin-tight it involves a boobplate. We can assure there’s nothing high-tech about separate boob bumps in a rigid breastplate meant for protection. Also, angel-themed character just happens to be a pale, blue-eyed blonde? How subtle!
Pharah, the Sexy Egyptian Soldier: Personality-, animation- and story-wise, a professional and devoted soldier in every inch. Design-wise… her (obviously Samus-inspired) battle suit includes what looks like a metal thong.
And funny how a female soldier character in gender-ambiguous armor just happens to have long, luxurious hair and perfectly made up face under that helmet. If she was a man she’d have the battle hardened, probably scarred, grizzled Male Protagonist™ look, including the buzzcut that conveniently cuts down on polygons while conveying military pragmatism.
Widowmaker the Sexy French Assassin: Some say she’s justified in looking sexy, as her design coveys a femme fatale. While it’s not wrong to have a femme fatale in the lineup (as long as it’s played as more than “good is chaste, evil is sexy”), we don’t see how that connects to this particular character, given her personality and story.
Why someone who was kidnapped, brainwashed and turned into a perfect unemotional killer would dress in something that looks like bodypaint with impossibly deep cleavage and high heels? How is such look helpful for her job as a sniper? Why does every male character from this archetype look totally different than her?
Tracer, the Sexy British Speedster: She’s playful, cute, energetic… and for some reason, whenever there’s a chance, her butt is put in the spotlight. Blizzard couldn’t give it up even when they admitted her previous victory pose was objectifying… they replaced it with a more playful, yet still butt-focused literal pinup.
Zarya, the Beefy Russian Gunner: The first attempt for a different female body type in Overwatch. Why does her suit includes boobplate, though? Much like Pharah, she doesn’t seem to have any of the grit we come to expect from heavy duty soldiers when they happen to be men.
Mei, the Curvy Chinese Scientist: Only problem with her is that we don’t know for sure whether she is significantly chubby/curvy (compared to all the thin women around) or if her thick arctic clothes make her look that way. She certainly doesn’t have her body type conveyed to the same extent as, say, Roadhog.
ALL OF THEM: They’re all young (19-34), with conventionally pretty faces (even Zarya and Mei, who are supposed to be somewhat masculine and chubby, respectively, don’t veer off any far from Western beauty standard). There’s very little body type variety. Literally half of the women are ethnically white, while two East Asian characters sport pale completions.
The Nerdwriter’s video is primarily about the infamous ShirtGate incident, but the same analysis applies to so many people who smugly post familiar rhetoric regarding the depictions of female characters, declaring themselves right and others wrong often based off nothing more than that declaration.
Innuendo Studios (Ian Danskin) also did an in depth video series about those who are angry at the existence of criticism, specifically about the harassment that Anita Sarkeesian has endured since Tropes vs Women in Video Games took off. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the whole series.
Please feel free to direct Angry Jacks to any of our posts or tags (eg agency, double standards, rhetoric, etc) and to seek help and resources if you’re being harassed. These are all resources we encourage people to share if you find someone posting, tweeting, etc in a misguided manner.
There’s also an interesting TED Talk by James Flynn on one of the reasons you may have trouble talking to people from particular backgrounds. But for now I want to talk about dealing with those who are less confused, less angry and are more smug.
Sadly, plenty of people either just don’t care what’s right and are more interested in maintaining dominance by default than they are about anything that’s ever going to be said. These people are largely the ones who try to seek out and weaponise Angry Jacks, and the ones who manufacture misinformation for their “cause”.
Attempting to engage in meaningful conversation with them, especially in their communities rarely does anything but make them feel that they’ve expanded their platform and hence gotten more “wins”. This is why you often see people like this desperately craving “debates” (winner to be decided by them or their friends, based off what they wanted to be true from the start).
So, if you’ve tagged us in to a conversation and hoped we’d join in – please understand that we haven’t got anything to say that wouldn’t be wasted on that audience. Everything we could say to them has been said, usually many times. This is the Internet after all.
If anything, they will simply interpret a specific response from us as an opportunity to try to hijack our platform and boost their audience, or simply assert that they’re our nemesis and thus instantly important.
Ultimately, that’s what’s feeding their habit – the search for bigger audiences, bigger wins and more validation. If they can’t get that, they take joy in knowing they’re wasting time that could be spent working on problems in a more general, helpful sense (especially if they have nothing else to do).
They won’t be getting a direct answer from us.Though we’re going to continue building commentary, resources and information on all the general issues around today and new ones as they arise and to call out key figures who actually already have high profiles and big influence.
We’re also going to continue to support others who do the same and hope that eventually social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, etc will start taking harassment seriously.
The important thing to understand about these people though is, that not only can’t they be persuaded (without having a deep personal change of their own), but they can’t advance or provide anything useful either.
By declaring victory for simply existing and refusing to consider any hypothetical or viewpoint other than their own, they’re inherently limiting their thinking, their contributions and themselves. By not even taking the time to understand before responding, they’re creating a no benefit scenario:
- Nobody can create tools for cultural critique (and rhetoric in response to the critique) if their culture(s) and parts thereof are beyond critique. They also certainly can’t make wonderful creative entries for contests.
- Nobody will come ask for your input to help with costume design if your feedback is unquestioning support of what they did before (or a torrent of abuse over any changes, no matter how minor)
- Nobody can expand their market share and try to make their product more accessible to more people by catering only to a small part of their existing market.
- Nobody can come to you for advice on how to better understand something, or incorporate it into your fiction or look for inspiration if you just support whatever, whenever or just rant about how you hate either a particular person or SJW boogieman in general.
On top of all this, they are incredibly prone to giving their money away to people who either just don’t deliver, or discover there was never anything to deliver. They also tend to find themselves limited to a very small range of supporters and options in terms of projects.
This is what happens when you choose harassment as your primary means of communication and dive deep into the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
So, while we do encourage you to call out people you see spreading harmful misinformation, if their response to that is to smugly reply with claims of victory and nonsense – remember what they’re seeking is equal parts maintaining the status quo and personal validation.
They’re also seeking to antagonize others simply because without some sort of scandal (or more commonly a faux scandal based on misinformation) to expand their audience, their default status is well…
Actually that’s not fair, Abraham Simpson III is far too good a person to be in that crowd. Sorry about that, Abe.
– wincenworks
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)